I would highly recommend 'Forced Induction Performance Tuning - A Practical Guide to Supercharging and Turbocharging' by A. Graham Bell. Commonly known as the green telephone book
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Forced-Induction-Performance-Tuning-H691/dp/1859606911

There's some useful sizing information and general design principles. What it won't tell you is how to tell a good core design from a poor one. i.e. heat rejection characteristics. That's where knowledge and experience are invaluable.

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Don
GT4DC Chairman
1994 Toyota Celica GT-Four ST205WRC JDM 269bhp @ 0.9bar
1994 Toyota Celica GT-Four Special GT 590bhp @ 1.8bar
1989 Van Diemen RF88/89 Formula Ford 1600
2008 Nissan Patrol GU 3.0L ZD30DDTi 154bhp

There is no way of calculating how big a core must be for Joe Bloggs I am afraid. It will vary with each different core type and turbulator design.

I Quizzed around 50-60% of UK intercooler manufacturers to try and get some flow figures for my calculations and all had based designs on previous experience of what had worked without any calculation or real data.

Now what really annoys me is a lot of the intercooler cores (in fact I would suggest all but specialist race cores from Secan and suchlike that came from the aero industry) are sourced from air conditioning heat exchanger suppliers and appear to be the same items. I work in a round about way in this industry but have to date struggled to obatin flow figures for sizing of cores.

The only real way I can see is sticking one on a flow bench to measure the pressure drop.

As a quick bit of info - from memory my core is around 285mm H x 65mm D x 485mm W and is used for an uprated Evo design that has apparently been proven to 450 bhp. IIRC Dale uses a larger core of around 300mm H x 80mm x 600mm Long which is a real struggle to fit on a ST185.

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JP
GT4DC Treasurer

Grey St185 RC
Silver BMW E46 M3
Multicolour yawn Honda VFR400
Silver Honda Civic Type-R

thats about spot on for the measurements of mine and my brothers cores JP, i have a link to the core similar to mine although the specs have changed in height for some reason and they are now 295mm as opposed to the 300mm of mine.

overall dimensions are:

780 x 90 x 320 (all mm obviously)

http://www.forgemotorsport.co.uk/conten ... MINT404UNI

the price has gone up since i got mine though i can say that! :O

Dale, what type do you have(inlets)?

600 pounds, ex. shipping. My EVO core cost me 20 pounds.
I think I'll stick with that.

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ST185 CS #1845

I have seen pics of an intercooler with endtanks that Datajon made. Those were verry long. Anyone knows how that went?

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ST185 CS #1845

this is my setup...



bit large... literally just fits..


and my mock up pipework


yeah i can see what you are saying with the evo stuff, i mean value for money they are great, but as i say, when they have come off of an evo thats running 400bhp for something better it makes you wonder why , i just wanted something that was proven and for the money i had the Forge seemed the best option after i had looked around

Is that the piping route you chose, with those 90* bends? I always read those must be avoided?

Intercooler is nice indeed, thanks for sharing.

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ST185 CS #1845

yeah to be fair the less bends the better but in all honesty its worked well and kept intake cool along with minimal lag so i never changed it.

I would say i achieve my 1.07bar boost under 4k so it will do me.

although i am going to lag the pipework with a kind of blanket wrap to lower the temps further as the core is superb so i should really lag the pipes to keep the trend. Its been on for 4 or so years i think now though!

I've read that lagging the pipes will keep the heat out, but it also keeps it in if you stand still for a moment.

Is that stainless piping you have?

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ST185 CS #1845

The car hasnt been dynoed since. It now on a rotisery having the underside treated for future preservation.

Have you got pics of the fmic. I cant find any online...

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ST165 turbo 4WD
ST185 GT-FOUR RC Carlos Sainz Limited Edition 825•5000
ST185 turbo 4WD Carlos Sainz Limited Edition 2541•5000

Piping is ally.

The lagging is not such lagging but more like a heat blanket if you see what i mean, i will try find the site i was going to buy it off and you do up what look like shoe laces.

The core is so efficient though that when you move it cools quick sharp to be honest, with no lagging at all if im sat in traffic for say 20 mins on a hot summer day the pipework is insane, but then if you touch it after a long drive its nice and cool so i think just keeping the heat off the pipes is a good start.

I did think about making up a metal heat shield curved around the top ic pipe that would span the whole length of the top pipe to prevent the heat directly going onto the ic pipe but wasnt sure how effective it would be for the hasstle of making it

Have a HDI RS spec FMIC to go on Erins - eventually.
Just need the pipework and joiners as have a clocking bracket

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Life is a *bleep*..............then you marry one

Hi,

calculating a intercooler is a pain o work, a turbolant flow is way better to transfer heat but makes a pressure loss so you have to find the "perfect" compromise

bigger is better, do not count in fact of this

and then there is still the other(atmospheric) side of the intercooler, so if you want to get a nearly good calculation you should get as much measurements and datas as possible
and then you need a engineer or dr. in technics who knows the buisiness to play a little bit with this

after that a little bit trial & error and you will find the compromise

greetz

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KEEP COOL UNDER PRESSURE

street legal?.....perhaps in tschibuti

No, i have not. It was a few years ago if I'm not mistaken.

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ST185 CS #1845

This is a good read

http://www.are.com.au/feat/techtalk/intecoolersMR.htm

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ST205